Full Tilt Gets KGC License Back

The Kahnawake Gaming Commission has reinstated the gaming license of Full Tilt Poker, shortly after having revoked it. Though the embattled online poker room still cannot offer games to customers in the jurisdiction, it’s a small piece of good news for a company that has had nothing but bad (mostly of their own doing).

The Kahnawake Gaming Commission is a regulatory agency run by the Mohawk tribe of Native Americans in Canada, south of Montreal. To maintain a gambling license from the KGC, its rules require that the company have a primary gambling license in a “comparable jurisdiction.” Full Tilt Poker was originally licensed by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission. However, after Alderney suspended Full Tilt’s license, the Kahnawake did the same, thinking that the company was no longer eligible.

However, since then, the KGC released a statement saying that the Aldnerney regulators have confirmed to the Commission, that even though Full Tilt’s license is suspended pending the outcome of a hearing, “these licenses are still considered to be valid.”

It’s a little unnerving that the Kahnawake regulators reinstated the license simply because they could. While it’s true that Full Tilt is shut down and cannot run their business until after the hearing anyway, the reputation of the Kahnawake Gaming Commission and the whole industry is at stake here. With everything that is happening with Full Tilt, the correct response seems to be distancing yourself from them. If they are a bad apple, which they seem to be, the industry needs to make it clear that their kind is not tolerated.